Personnel: George Langis, guitar; Nick Langis, lead vocals; Pete Stergios, drums; Jimmi Monroe, bass. Formed: Fall 1988. The band, featuring Stergios and the brothers Langis, was a three-piece in high school, with Nick playing bass. Current lineup together since: May 1990, when Monroe joined. Sound: "Some of our songs have an alternative kind of sound, meaning the arrangements aren`t just typical," says George Langis. "Some are catchy pop- rock stuff. I just call it hard rock `n` roll."

Various Artists Succour (Flydaddy)(star) (star) (star) 1/2 This 35-song, double-CD compilation was put together to aid the British music magazine Ptolemaic Terrascope, a wide-ranging quarterly devoted to old and new psychedelia and related music. Terrascope was co-founded seven years ago by Nick Saloman, who has recorded a slough of amazing hard rock/psychedelic pop records as the Bevis Frond. Fittingly "Succour" chronicles contemporary head music in all of its many forms, from hard rock to pop to folk to ambient, and all of the tunes are glazed with a palpably trippy vibe.

Tipping back a couple of longnecks in a typically dark rock club with the guys in the band Rock Star Club evokes neither the sense of glamor nor the aura of exclusiveness that their moniker might suggest. In fact, with cheap domestic bottles and pictures of newborns being passed around in equal numbers, images of block parties in non-affluent suburbs come to mind more than concert halls packed with screaming fans and guitars. If such a pedestrian gathering bothers anyone in the group, though, they're not saying so. For Paul Kasprzak, Chuck Tipton and Eli Sabbagh (the daddy)

Tuesday's Grammy nominations (see Page 43) are an indication of how the awards have changed for the better. It wasn't so long ago that the Grammys were suffering from a credibility crisis. Since then, the Recording Academy has taken steps--such as creating a nomination review board and limiting the number of categories that members can vote in--to make sure awards missteps such as those listed below wouldn't happen again. 1. Milli Vanilli, best new artist, 1989. In the Grammys' biggest scandal, Rob Pilatus and Fab Morvan were deemed the year's most promising singers, even though they lip-synched and never sang a note.

Nightmare at Maple Cross (Girlschool, GWR/Profile Records). In its 10-year existence, Girlschool has gone through a number of personnel changes and at least a couple of stylistic permutations. If you listened to the all-woman band in its early days, you heard a slab-of-sound metal style. If you picked up their 1985 album "Running Wild," however, you heard a band leaning toward pop territory, with a sound somewhere between hard rock and something milder. While those personalities certainly were different, neither ever managed to offer much beyond the standard fare in its stylistic niche.

If you told your friends you were going to hear Saul Hudson, some might giggle. But tell them you're going to hear Slash , and something different happens. The guitarist renowned for his work with Guns N' Roses slings hard rock from behind a mop of hair. We can't promise a life-changing show, but know this: There will be solos. Why go : The true guitar hero is rare, and Slash is one of them. Reconsider : It's Guns N' Roses, or nothing. Details : 7:30 p.m. Friday, Riviera Theatre, 4746 N. Racine Ave., $39; etix.com

If the live performance by Incubus at Charter One Pavilion is anything like the "Monuments and Melodies" greatest hits album the band recently released, you can expect a little of the hard rock ("Megalomaniac") and the more pop-sounding Incubus ("Love Hurts"), with some older cuts mixed in. Besides the wonderful view of the Chicago lakefront and skyline from Charter One, California pretty boy Brandon Boyd will be front and center as usual. 8 p.m. Tuesday at Charter One Pavilion at Northerly Island, 1300 S. Linn White Drive.